RENTON — The Seattle Seahawks want to make sure everyone knows the roof is not caving in at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
The Seahawks may be 2-4, they may have watched substantial fourth-quarter leads disappear each of the past two weeks, but they’re not about to panic about their current situation.
“This is a good football team,” linebacker K.J. Wright said Tuesday. “I know our record says otherwise, but this is a good football team, we’ve been playing really good football. We just need to keep doing it and keep doing it, and things, eventually things will go our way.
“(Panic) isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Wright added. “The only thing you can do is stay positive, keep believing, and just know something good is going to happen. We’re confident we’re going to change this thing around.”
The numbers make for hard reading for the Seahawks. Seattle’s goal from the outset was to reach its third straight Super Bowl. But now the Seahawks are 2-4, and no team that started 2-4 has ever made the Super Bowl.
Even the playoffs are looking like a difficult prospect. According to Stats Inc., since the NFL expanded the playoffs to include 12 teams in 1990 just 14 of the 168 teams that started 2-4 have reached the postseason. That’s just 8.3 percent. The last team to start the season 2-4 and make the playoffs was the 2011 Denver Broncos, who finished 8-8 and only qualified because they held the three-way tiebreaker with San Diego and Oakland to win a mediocre AFC West.
Tack on that the Seahawks themselves have never reached the playoffs when starting 2-4 and the outlook seems grim. But while a gloom may have settled over much of the fan base, the Seahawks claim it hasn’t crept into the locker room.
“Our mood isn’t any different than it’s been before,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “It’s a mood of being focused and lasered in on what we need to be focused on, and that’s trying to go 1-0 this week. Ultimately, that’s never going to change for us no matter what our circumstances are. No matter if we’re 6-0 or we’re 2-4 like we are, we don’t look at our record, we’re just trying to focus on how can we find a way to win.”
If there’s one thing in the numbers that gives the Seahawks a glimmer of hope it’s the schedule. Of Seattle’s four losses three were against teams that are still undefeated (Green Bay, Cincinnati, Carolina), and the overall record of the Seahawks’ first six opponents is 22-12. That all changes beginning this week. Seattle’s next two opponents, San Francisco and Dallas, are 2-4 and 2-3, respectively, which offers up the possibility of a quick rebound. Overall, the current records of the Seahawks’ final 10 opponents is a combined 26-31.
Add in that Seattle still has a positive points differential of plus-9 and the Seahawks are far from giving up hope on the season, despite their record.
“I think we’re a hard team to rattle, we’re a hard team to get down, because we take it one game at a time,” cornerback Richard Sherman said. “You don’t win all the games. I think sometimes these moments kind of help you improve as a team, and I think we appreciate it. We appreciate how tough it is this year. We’re in a lot of these games. It would be a different story if we were getting blown out by 40 points every week and there was no way to fix it. But there’s one mistake, one play here or there that guys just need to clean up and correct, and we’re right on it.”
The big miscommunication that resulted in the game-winning touchdown in Seattle’s 27-23 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday came in the secondary. Following the game the members of the secondary remained huddled together in the locker room well after the game was over, trying to figure out how the mistake happened and how to correct it. The Seahawks say that’s an indication their mindset is still in the right place.
“Think of all we’ve been through and how long these guys have been through these challenges and all,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “They care so much and they’re so connected that they’re trying to put their heads together, too, because they want to help also. They want to do right, and they want to get better. They’re strong about it. They admit when they make their mistakes, they admit when they could have helped somebody out and that is just an illustration of their willingness to keep competing and to keep battling to get it right.
“I’m totally convinced that these guys are going to go for it, they’re going to stay with it, and they’re going to battle. That’s all they know.”
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
